Data Engineer

Penlink is a technology company bringing clarity to complex data for people who need it now. We partner with law enforcement agencies across the United States, offering a software solution to manage data and aid investigators solving crimes. It sounds like a lot of data and analytics, but really, it’s about improving the world and keeping safe the places we call home. 

We focus on creating products that positively impact our communities and being "in the mission" and less about the laidback culture and amazing benefits – even though we offer those too. With our get it done attitude and focused mission we are growing at an unprecedented rate and are therefore seeking a Data Engineer to build and maintain the data infrastructure that powers our AI and analytics capabilities. This role designs scalable data pipelines, optimizes data flow, and ensures high-quality, accessible data for the AI models and analytics systems our investigative platforms depend on. 

YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES 

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Data Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience. 
• Design, build, and maintain data pipelines and data processing systems that move data reliably from source to consumption. 
• Manage data ingestion from structured and unstructured sources, including high-volume telecommunications and digital evidence data. 
• Build and support the data infrastructure underlying AI models and analytics workflows. 
• Develop and maintain data models and schemas that support both operational and analytical use cases. 
• Optimize the performance, scalability, and reliability of data systems as data volumes grow, resolving pipeline failures and data discrepancies as they arise. 
• Establish and monitor controls for data quality, integrity, and availability. 
• Partner with AI Engineers, Data Scientists, and software engineering teams to prepare datasets, support model development, and align data architecture with platform requirements. 
• Document data flows, transformations, and system architecture to support maintainability and knowledge sharing. 
• Follow secure development and data handling practices appropriate to sensitive law enforcement data. 
• All other duties as assigned 

YOUR COMPETENCIES & EXPERIENCE 

• Strong experience building and maintaining data pipelines and ETL/ELT processes. 
• Experience with relational databases, data warehousing, and large-scale data processing. 
• Proficiency in SQL, including query optimization and performance tuning. 
• Proficiency in a programming language used for data engineering, such as Python or Scala. 
• Experience with cloud or distributed data systems. 
• Strong understanding of data modeling, schema design, and performance optimization. 
• Ability to work across teams to support data-driven initiatives, including explaining technical concepts to non-technical partners. 
• Must be eligible to obtain and maintain a U.S. Government Security Clearance. 
• Experience supporting machine learning or AI workloads in production environments. 
• Experience with workflow orchestration tools and streaming or event-driven data processing. 
• Experience with Oracle and enterprise database environments. 
• Familiarity with TCP/IP data and telecommunications data formats. 
• Experience working with unstructured data such as text, media, or digital forensics artifacts. 
• Experience in an Agile software development environment using Git-based version control. 
• Prior experience in law enforcement, public safety, government, or another regulated data environment.